PRESIDENT Marcos Jr appointed a former official of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency as acting commissioner of the Bureau of Customs, an agency that has been the subject of calls for abolition because of allegations of corruption.
Press Secretary Trixie Cruz-Angeles yesterday said Yogi Filemon Ruiz was sworn into office by Marcos on Wednesday.
Malacañang also announced that Marcos retained Philippe Jones Lhuillier as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary for Spain. Lhuillier was appointed by former President Duterte to the post in 2017.
Ruiz, who replaced Rey Leonardo Guerrero, was director of the Customs Enforcement and Security Services. He was appointed to the post by former Customs chief Isidro Lapeña, who was also former PDEA chief.
Ruiz was PDEA regional chief for Central Visayas before he joined the Customs bureau in 2017.
Lapeña, as BOC commissioner, came under fire after then PDEA chief Aaron Aquino said P11 billion worth of shabu discovered in four magnetic lifters slipped past the bureau and later went missing. Calls for Lapeña’s resignation were dismissed by then President Duterte who just transferred the official to the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority.
Ruiz, as head of the PDEA Central Visayas region, earned the ire of human rights groups after ordering inmates of the Cebu Provincial Detection and Rehabilitation Center in February 2017 to strip down as they were being searched during a surprise inspection.
Last June, former Senate President Vicente Sotto III came out a list of government officials, including those from the BOC and Department of Agriculture, who were included in a validated intelligence list as involved in smuggling. The list included Guerrero’s name and those of several directors and deputy commissioners.
Sotto said he has furnished Marcos a copy of list of the names of the suspected smugglers and protectors of agricultural products.
At the Department of Health, officer-in-charge Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire has relegated some of her functions to other health officials.
To lead the National Vaccination Operations Center, she said she has designated Assistant Secretary Nestor Santiago.
“He will be directly reporting to me. I will still oversee the operations,” she said in a briefing on Wednesday.
She said she has also appointed Undersecretary Beverly Ho as DOH deputy spokesperson.
“When I am not available, she will do the task so we can continuously inform the public,” she said. — With Gerard Naval
